In today’s episode of “College Admissions Real Talk”, Dr. Legatt answers a listener question concerning extracurriculars.
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Transcript:
VO: Welcome to College Admissions Real Talk with Dr. Aviva Legatt, a podcast for students seeking to get admitted to top-tier colleges. Each episode will feature an important tip for your college admission success, delivered with candor and love. If you’ve ever wanted to take a peek inside the mind of a college admissions officer, this is your chance. Have a question? Text Dr. Legatt at 610-222-5762. So, what’s your dream school?
AL: Welcome to College Admissions Real Talk. This is Dr. Aviva Legatt, founder and Elite Admissions Expert at Ivy Insight and author of “Get Real and Get In”. Today, we’re going to be talking about a listener question. The question is I’m a junior and don’t have any extracurriculars yet. Is it too late to start?
So to answer that question in brief, of course, the best time to start your extracurricular activities was yesterday. But the next best time is right now. As a junior, you have plenty of options and opportunities to participate in activities outside the classroom even during these COVID times. The top types of activities I recommend for you to consider are those which impact your college admissions X factor. You can check out another episode about your college admissions X factor to learn more about what that is. In brief you’re building on your expertise, so your knowledge of a specific subject. Your experience, this implies what your exposure has been to certain topics and the variety of things you’ve been engaged in. And your exponentialism. Exponentialism refers to your impacting not only yourself but your community and peers that surround you. When you’re looking to build up this College Admissions X Factor best to follow your own curiosity. Don’t join a club just because a friend is there and don’t join something just because your parents tell you too. You want to think through exactly what you enjoy and how you can build on that enjoyment. You could, for example, start with an academic curiosity. If there’s a subject in school that you really like if you like English and writing, for example, you could choose to write a blog about a topic of interest. If you have trouble coming up with ideas you can try to interview people about a topic you’re interested in. This will help you also to learn more about that topic while building up your writing experiences Of course, for writers there’s great opportunities to join your school’s newspaper or literary magazine. And this also gives you a great way to meet new people. The second kind of activity other than writing that I recommend whether you are a writer or not is research. So research be conducted in topics from stem all the way through art. We can help you with a research project by matching you with professor in our network of over 95 professors. You can go to our website emergingleaderprog.com to check that out. But you don’t necessarily need help to match to professor. Another option would be to pitch a professor on your own to conduct research under their mentorship or in collaboration with them. By pursuing research you will be able to build your expertise around a subject. Ideally, you can also publish this research which increases your exponentialism. Finally, you can consider founding a new organization or platform, especially during these challenging COVID times where we’re all looking for ways to stay connected. We’re all looking for ways to have meaning and have impact If you’re not finding something that really feels like it fits you, then you have the opportunity to create something. If you are listening to this podcast, you have an Internet connection and you have the ability to pull things up on the web to figure out how to operationalize us. So there are a lot of resources out there that can help you get started. And I invite you to consider speaking with our team about the next steps for your project. You can contact us at info at Ivy Insight.com and any questions: 610-222-5762.
VO: College Admissions Real Talk is hosted by Aviva Legatt, edited by Stephanie Carlin, and produced by Incontrera Consulting. I’m Caroline Stokes and this has been your daily boost of college admissions insight. Have a question? Text Dr. Legatt at 610-222- 5762. For more information on Dr. Legatt and Ivy Insight visit www.ivyinsight.com. And you can pick up Dr. Legatt’s book, “Get Real and Get In”, at major retail outlets across the world. Insight out.
